


About Time

by Kira_Gold



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, F/M, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Maths lessons, So here you go???, This pairing is so weird, a lot of fluff, but i like it, its better then the summary i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-09 22:40:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7820050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kira_Gold/pseuds/Kira_Gold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And then boom — it’s next year. And somehow they end up in the same maths class, since Gamzee has been studying for the end-of-years more then he usually does, and Jade may have relaxed a bit with this subject, focusing more on history. Their new maths teacher is pretty keen on having a good “learning spirit” in the room, which apparently requires not having any friends sitting next to each other, so somehow Gamzee ends up on the same desk as Jade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	About Time

**Author's Note:**

> So I got this idea when I woke up in the middle of the night and I wrote it down in my notebook in total darkness in the most horrible handwriting ever. And then next morning I read it and was like "GamJade? They've never even talked in canon!". And... then I wrote this anyway. So here you go, enjoy!

Gamzee and Jade don’t even talk. Sure, they live in the same boarding school and are in the same year, but they really don’t. He knows her as best friend’s acquaintance, she notices him once or twice during an art class they share while sitting in the opposite corners of the classroom. Sure, if asked each other’s name they would remember, because his is rather weird and she has a good memory for things out-of-the-ordinary, and hers is pretty common and common things tend to stick in his head longer then anything else, but the surnames are out of question. The art teacher is rather liberal with taking the register, so the only way for them to find out what the other is called is hearing one of the fellow classmates ask them for something.

_“Uhh, Gamzee, I’m out of purple paint, can I borrow your palette?”_

_“Jade, do you have a sharpener? I seem to have left mine…”_

They don’t try memorising intentionally because, again, they don’t even talk, but after a whole year in the same class, even if it is art, you are bound to at least find out the name of “that face-painted guy” or “the girl with the giant motherfucking dog”. 

And then boom — it’s next year. And somehow they end up in the same maths class since Gamzee has been apparently studying for the end-of-years more then he usually does because he needs at least decent grades, and Jade may have relaxed a bit with this subject, focusing more on history, because that will be her major anyways, but mathematics are unfortunately compulsory for everyone at this stage. Their new maths teacher is pretty keen on having a good “learning spirit” in the room, which apparently requires not having any friends sitting next to each other, so somehow Gamzee ends up on the same desk as Jade. 

“Hey,” she smiles as he drops his bag on the floor and collapses on the chair. “Um-m, Gamzee, right?” 

“How the heck do you know my name?” he frowns, face paint barely covering dark circles under his eyes. Considering the fact that it is the first day of school, Harley wonders, what has he been doing all summer if he hasn’t gotten any rest.

“We were in the same art class!” she explains cheerfully. “Well, still should be if you haven’t dropped the subject! I am—”

“Oh yeah,” he nods, interrupting. “Jade, is it?” 

  “Yup!” the girl confirms. “We sit in the different ends of the room, so no surprise you haven’t recognised me!”

“Sure,” Gamzee shrugs showing no more interest in her, and looks towards the teacher who finally starts the lesson. Jade stares at him for a second more, then her gaze shifts at her own notebook. Yeah, this guy never struck her as very friendly.

But it is significantly harder not to talk to each other when there’s less then half a meter distance between your chairs then when there is about five. Sometimes — often — Gamzee asks Jade for rulers or pencils or erasers because the guy does not seem to bother with bringing any stationery apart from a pen to lessons. Not less often she looks at him with puppy eyes, begging to copy his homework because “I had a history essay to write and also a map to draw for geography and maths just take so long, so…”. 

“Just take it,” the guy would usually reply, shoving her his notebook before the teacher arrives to the classroom and notices. She smiles happily and copies down the answers to her own book in that awfully round handwriting full of spirals and circles instead of dots. Sometimes she asks what number this zigzag was meant to represent, because Gamzee writes in messy and barely distinguishable letters, and he explains with a grin. 

“See, the ones which look like t’s are fours, that should be so motherfucking obvious. And those wicked zigzags are threes. And…” 

“You do English, right?” she sighs. “I feel so sorry for your teacher for having to read your essays.”

“He gave up,” Gamzee replies laconically and Jade has hard time not giggling because, oh my god, their teacher is here, she didn’t notice me copying, right? And Makara couldn’t help but smile at her attempts to look completely unsuspicious. 

Yeah, she might be not as boring of a person as he thought at first. 

And sometimes, on Saturdays, when their teacher decides to make a “fun” maths lesson, hands them out these more logical then mathematical problems and asks to work in pairs, Jade turns towards Gamzee, her eyes shining, and starts whispering the possible way to go about the task. Logic is more of her thing then maths, the boy notices absently, and doesn’t even realise how does she manage to get him interested in the discussion. Nevertheless, towards the middle of the lesson they both look more enthusiastic about solving the problem then the rest of the class combined, often shouting at each other (“Look, if this pirate takes all the money for himself, the other two are going to disagree and—” “Yeah, that’s what I’m all up and sayin’, that’s why he is going to offer one motherfucking coin to…” ), and at the end, when Jade proudly presents the teacher their solution, explaining something and often pointing at Gamzee (“He was the one to understand that the youngest pirate will have to accept because…”), he looks at the excitement on her face with too wide of a grin. 

“Hey Jade,” he asks at one point, when they’re about to exit the room and go to their respective lessons (he has Spanish, the girl — English). “I was wonderin’, if you were up for going to lunch together sometime? Or dinner, doesn’t motherfucking matter, though I don’t usually have dinners in school, so—”

“Lunch sounds good!” she giggles, interrupting. “Wednesday, perhaps? Rose usually goes with me, but I think she has plans with Kanaya for this week, so I’m free!” 

“Yeah, that would be motherfucking nice,” Gamzee nods, and, when the girl runs towards her English classroom (it is only few meters away from the maths block), hopping, he smiles to himself. That would be the first time he meets her outside the class environment, but with Jade it is pretty much guaranteed to be fun. 

On Wednesdays Gamzee usually has lunch with Karkat, but the guy will have no problem whatsoever with finding someone else to eat with — perhaps, he can join Strider and Egbert or something. This is exactly what he says to Vantas in the morning break. The boy stares at him weirdly. 

“I mean not that I fucking care, but do you have someone to go with?” 

“Sure I do,” Gamzee grins. “I’m not just gonna miss the motherfucking fish and chips day, y’know.”

“Yeah…” Karkat still doesn’t sound convinced. “I really hope you’re not going with Terezi, because last time you went to lunch with Terezi…”

“Not listening!” Gamzee interrupts, shaking his head furiously with a smirk. “The past’s in the motherfucking past, Karbro! And besides, no, fuck Terezi.”

“Agreed,” Vantas frowns. “Whom then? Who has the un-fortune of having his brain eaten out by Gamzee Makara instead of lunch?”

Gamzee opens his mouth to tell him, but is interrupted by the girl herself. She storms up to them, almost tripping over the chair, and lands on the sofa opposite the boys. Fortunately, the so-called social centre in their school has enough sofas for at least twenty students to fit on them, so she doesn’t fall on anybody. 

“Hey guys!” Jade smiles. “Karkat, long time no see! Gamzee, we’re still up for lunch, right?” 

“Of course,” he grins back, feeling rather pleased with himself when he sees Karkat’s jaw dropping from the corner of his eye. “Meet you outside the dining hall?” 

“Yup!” Jade nods and stands up. “Sorry, I’d stay for longer, but gotta go help Jake with something. Later, Gam! Bye, Karkat!”.

She runs off again, and Vantas stared at her back for five solid seconds before turning to Makara again. 

“You know, I’m not even gonna fucking ask how did you get Jade fucking _Harley_ to go to lunch with you,” he says. “Just — tell me later, who ends up eating out whose brain.”

  “Abso-motherfucking-lutely,” Gamzee nods, and Karkat looks into his eyes, suddenly smirks and shakes his head. “Huh? Somethin’ wrong?”

  “Oh, not at all,” Karkat shrugs, still smirking. “Just can’t wait to see how this turns out.”

———

Gamzee does not understand why was Karkat so sceptical about this — it turns out great. Jade is fun to talk to and knows a lot on a lot of topics — when Gamzee briefly mentions that if he doesn’t end up working in a circus he will be an engineer, she picks up the conversation easily, talking about engineering in universities and a possible job opportunities, and when he says something about wanting to buy a gaming console, Jade ends up inviting him over to her house to play sometime during weekends or holidays because she, apparently, has a PlayStation 3 and quite a few titles. 

The lunch in their school lasts forty five minutes (usually, at least), so they only have about half an hour to eat if they don’t want to be late. Their next lesson is, however, once again maths, so they continue their conversation there because the teacher is, fortunately, out of school for a week, leaving them a lot of workbook exercises to do. Before the end of the day they find out more about each other then they knew after a year and a few months of being in the same school, and heck, Gamzee does not regret anything. 

In the evening he can’t stop talking to Karkat about it, bouncing around the room excitedly, face paint smeared inaccurately over his face, and, to shut him up, the guy puts up a movie on the screen of his laptop — luckily, neither have homework for tomorrow and they are the only ones in the room. It is, of course, a romance film, because Vantas was the one to choose, and moreover, it is something about school life, so Gamzee can’t help but draw some parallels. 

The main female character in these movies always has to be a smart but shy girl, and Jade is everything but shy, of course, but the actress looks a bit too much like her, so that parallel appears almost immediately. The “love interest”… Well, of course there is Dave motherfucking Strider, her childhood friend (which he only found out today — these two don’t act like they know each other too well) but Gamzee chooses to dismiss the fact of asshole’s existence whatsoever, and not like Jade speaks to much boys apart from that kid. There is Karkat as well, sure, but he and said Strider are in “No, Gamzee, me and Dave are not fucking dating!” — “Hell yeah we are, dude!” kind of relationship, so that wouldn’t do either. And then it only leaves Gamzee himself, but… Yeah, these thoughts are useless, life is not a motherfucking romcom, so. 

At the end of the film (well past their bed time already) Karkat closes his laptop, pushes Gamzee toward Makara’s own bed and once again smirks with an unrecognisable emotion, something like a mix of curiosity, condescension and slight mockery. 

“I like the film,” he informs. “Rather… relatable.”

And leaves Gamzee to figure out what was this statement about, turning to the wall under his sheets and closing his eyes. 

“G’night to you too, Karbro,” the boy mutters, collapsing on his bed. No, life is definitely not a motherfucking romcom. Even if it sometimes it seems almost painfully similar.

———

Their school year continues. Nothing changes much over the course of it — Jade and Gamzee still sit at the same desk in maths because the teacher has given up on trying to stop having friends sitting near each other, they go to lunches together pretty often, school ones and even in the town on Sundays, at least sometimes, Gamzee does come over to Jade’s one weekend, because her house is not that far away and he does not understand why is she even in a boarding school at all, and they play games and watch movies all night long. Turns out, Harley likes romcoms just as much as Karkat, and Gamzee does not stop teasing her about it for at least a week. She doesn’t mind, because she kicked his ass in almost about every videogame they played and does not let that go any time soon as well. 

And then it’s the end-of-years again and they both manage to ace their maths exam, because apparently they ended up learning something even if they were talking mercilessly through every lesson. Jade also does well on history and english, not so much — on geography, but she doesn’t mind an occasional B in between her A’s. Gamzee laughs about how the teachers barely managed to mark his essays in about every subject that required writing essays, because his handwriting during exams is somehow even more horrible then normally, but nevertheless his marks aren’t at all bad. Having Jade as a study partner is pretty useful, after all. 

And Gamzee does not know — for the love of God, he does _not_ know — why does Karkat start giggling whenever he sees them together. 

There’s still another week left of school, even despite the exams being finished and marks being found out, and no teacher is cruel enough to keep them working after all the revision and stress, so all the way through maths and art Jade and Gamzee talk, doodle on the paper, because even if they don’t have an assignment to do in art, they both love drawing, and share their plans for the summer holidays. 

“My family is planning to go to Spain!” Jade tells him. “I think it would be a bit too hot in the summer, but at least the sea is gonna be warm!”

“And mine are all up and planin’ to take me to China or something,” he shrugs. “Should be interesting, but i think that’s a bit too much motherfucking people for a relaxing holiday.”

“Meaning your family or people in China?” Jade laughs, and holy shit, her smile is beautiful.

Not that he hasn't _noticed_ it before, but he came to _acknowledge_ it just now, and being himself, he's used to saying his thoughts out loud before actually thinking whether he should do so at all. So he does. 

"Harley, do you know you're motherfucking beautiful?" 

The girl, who clearly wasn't expecting this compliment, looks kind of stunned for a second, but then smiled even wider, slightly blushing. 

"Um, wow, thanks! I, I didn't expect that, but thanks! You are too, you know!"

"Funny joke," he laughs, dragging a finger across his cheek and smearing it in the white face paint. Then he leans forward, touching Jade's nose and leaving a white stain on it. The girl giggles, but does not try to erase it. 

"It wasn't a joke," she shrugs and looks at the canvas in front of her again. "Anyways, do you think I should add some yellow to the leaves?" 

"Uh. Yeah. Maybe. I think. I-if you think it will work well," he stutters, and thank god for said face paint, otherwise his blush would be painfully obvious. 

And when they go out of the classroom the smear is still on Jade's nose, and it's also break time, and since their boarding houses are in the same direction, the walk together for a while. Jade babbles something about summer holidays once agains, and Gamzee barely listens to the words, concentrating just on the sound of her voice. 

"Hey Jade," he interrupts at one point, and the girl, stopped mid-sentence, looks at him. 

"Yeah?" 

And for fuck's sake, Gamzee can say anything right now. Something like "Your holiday plan sounds pretty motherfucking cool," or "You still have the paint on your nose," or anything else, really, but instead he blurts out: 

"Will you go out with me?" 

She stops walking abruptly, which would look hilarious if happened at any other time, and narrows her eyes, staring at him. 

"...Come again?" 

"I-I mean it is totally motherfucking cool if you don't want to, I thought I would ju-just ask if you wanted to, but if you don't it's fine, and..." 

He blushes stronger every second and soon enough it is visible even through the layer of paint. Suddenly, after few seconds of him rambling, Jade laughs, loudly and happily, her face almost just as red, and then gives Gamzee another one of her bright smiles. 

"I thought you'd never ask," she giggles. "Yes, Gamzee, I would absolutely love to go out with you."

For a second Gamzee wants to say about how this can't be real because life is not a stupid motherfucking romcom, but, again, Jade likes romcoms about as much as Karkat, and he's not about to start insulting something she likes any time soon. So instead he leans forward, kissing her. Harley smiles into the kiss, and Makara could swear he hears her whisper something like "About time".

**Author's Note:**

> Needless to say, when Gamzee told Karkat what happened, he said "I can't believe how fucking long it took you two dumbasses to figure out you're perfect for each other!" and proceeded to text Dave, because betting on whether or not your friends will get together is fun.  
> "YOU LOST THE BET STRIDER.  
> dude no way they cant be dating  
> SURE AS HELL THEY ARE!  
> shit youre right  
> ok but ill bet you twenty quid that theyll not stay together after the summer holidays  
> YOU'RE ON."  
> (Two easiest bets Karkat has won, ever.)


End file.
